10th edition CIFF – 10-14 April 2024

Girlhood (2015 Feature Film)

Céline Sciamma | France | 2014 | 112 min | French

Energetic coming-of-age drama by Sciamma (Water Lilies, Tomboy), with an extremely young, highly convincing cast, showing how a 16-year-old girl flees her old life and changes completely under peer pressure. The banlieues of Paris form the backdrop to this raw portrait of a new life for resilient Marieme.

Céline Sciamma’s third feature film is an intriguing and moving examination of a young black woman’s transition from puberty to adulthood in one of Paris’s banlieues. Her chances of escaping this environment are slim. Employment opportunities are few, and she has problems with relationships and pregnancies. In a natural way, Sciamma shows how family and society can – sometimes unintentionally – hold back young women.

With her girlfriends, Marieme – now calling herself Vic – shops, dances and flirts. We are constantly aware of her strength and vigilance – she’s not naive, she knows what’s what. Set to the music from Rihanna’s Diamonds, in one beautiful, poignant scene Sciamma shows how we all feel when we do not quite yet have to be an adult and everything seems possible. The frustration of the previous generation of young people growing up in the banlieues, so powerfully presented by Mathieu Kassovitz in La haine in 1995, here makes way for the power of the new.

Place: The Cinemas 6

Date: 28 March 2015

Time: 21:15

Duration: 2:00

Place: The Cinemas 3

Date: 29 March 2015

Time: 18:15

Duration: 2:00

Year in
Festival

2015

Director

Céline Sciamma

Camera

Crystel Fournier

Cast

Karidja Touré
Assa Sylla
Lindsay Karamoh
Mariétou Touré
Idrissa Diabate
Simina Soumare
Cyril Mendy

Country

France

Editor

Julien Lacheray

Language

French

Length

112 min

Music

Para One

Producer

Bénédicte Couvreur

Production Company

Hold-Up Films & Productions

Production Design

Thomas Grézaud

Sales

Films Distribution

Scenario

Céline Sciamma

Sound Design

Pierre André
Daniel Sobrino

Year of Production

2014

Website

Céline SCIAMMA (1980, France) received a master’s degree in French literature before enrolling at the La Fémis film school. She writes for film and television and debuted as a director with Water Lilies (2007). Her internationally praised second feature film, Tomboy (2011), was awarded in Berlin and the Odessa International Film Festival, among others. Her coming-of-age-drama Girlhood (2014) won three awards in the first year after premiering, including the Bronze Horse at the Stockholm Film Festival.

 

Filmography

Naissances des pieuvres/Water Lilies (2007), Pauline (2010, short), Tomboy (2011), Bande de filles/Girlhood (2014)